a prospect of success, we made signals for the boats
and the remainder of the people. This seemed to
us like a reprieve from death; and happy was the man
who could first get on board of any ship, or the first
boat he could meet. We then proceeded in this
manner till we got into the open water again, which
we accomplished in about thirty hours, to our infinite
joy and gladness of heart. As soon as we were
out of danger we came to anchor and refitted; and
on the 19th of August we sailed from this uninhabited
extremity of the world, where the inhospitable climate
affords neither food nor shelter, and not a tree or
shrub of any kind grows amongst its barren rocks;
but all is one desolate and expanded waste of ice,
which even the constant beams of the sun for six months
in the year cannot penetrate or dissolve. The
sun now being on the decline the days shortened as
we sailed to the southward; and, on the 28th, in latitude
73, it was dark by ten o’clock at night.
September the 10th, in latitude 58-59, we met a very
severe gale of wind and high seas, and shipped a great
deal of water in the space of ten hours. This
made us work exceedingly hard at all our pumps a whole
day; and one sea, which struck the ship with more force
than any thing I ever met with of the kind before,
laid her under water for some time, so that we thought
she would have gone down. Two boats were washed
from the booms, and the long-boat from the chucks:
all other moveable things on the deck were also washed
away, among which were many curious things of different
kinds which we had brought from Greenland; and we
were obliged, in order to lighten the ship, to toss
some of our guns overboard. We saw a ship, at
the same time, in very great distress, and her masts
were gone; but we were unable to assist her.
We now lost sight of the Carcass till the 26th, when
we saw land about Orfordness, off which place she
joined us. From thence we sailed for London,
and on the 30th came up to Deptford. And thus
ended our Arctic voyage, to the no small joy of all
on board, after having been absent four months; in
which time, at the imminent hazard of our lives, we
explored nearly as far towards the Pole as 81 degrees
north, and 20 degrees east longitude; being much farther,
by all accounts, than any navigator had ever ventured
before; in which we fully proved the impracticability
of finding a passage that way to India.

CHAP. X.

The author leaves Doctor Irving
and engages on board a Turkey ship—­Account
of a black man’s being kidnapped on board
and sent to the West Indies, and the author’s
fruitless endeavours to procure his freedom—­Some
account of the manner of the author’s conversion
to the faith of Jesus Christ.

Our voyage to the North Pole being ended, I returned
to London with Doctor Irving, with whom I continued
for some time, during which I began seriously to reflect
on the dangers I had escaped, particularly those of